


there's comfort at the bottom of a swimming pool

by eleven_twelve



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, So cute tho, Summer Love, Underage Drinking, its basically mark complimenting donghyuck bc hes amazing (me), jeno has a fidget spinner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 16:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12172374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleven_twelve/pseuds/eleven_twelve
Summary: Donghyuck makes time go at half speed and Mark likes his summers long.





	there's comfort at the bottom of a swimming pool

Brown sand falls in a little heap on the dark orange tiles of the hallway floor when Mark pours it out of his basket shoes at five in the morning. He spreads it out with a light blow and sweeps the remains into the cracks to be removed by his mother's vacuum cleaner in a couple of hours. He stands up and wipes a slight layer of sweat from his upper lip. The alcohol in the thermometer by the front door already reaches halfway between twenty and twenty-one. Mark treads to the garage on bare feet and takes a basketball from the shelf. Outside the sun rises in a mixture of pink and white heat.

The sound of the basketball bouncing off of the white-hot concrete of the driveway echoes loudly throughout the sleeping street. Mark lazily chases it down his neighbour's lawn when it crosses the stone wall that separates the yellowing grass of their front gardens. He looks up at Jeno's window, navy curtains still closed. Mark imagines his friend spread out on his king-size bed, tangled in a sheet, fan on the highest setting. He laughs. How ridiculous Lee Jeno's sleeping habits have always been.

When he retrieves the ball, he goes to sit down against the wall of his house, where the sun's warmth hasn't reached its burning fingers yet, a patch of shadow decreasing by the second. Mark glances at his watch. Half past five. He should be here soon.

It doesn't take long for the paper boy to make his way down Mark's affluent suburb, complete with palm trees and three car garages. He comes up the hill on his worn-out bike, sweat glistening on his forehead in the morning light like ripples of the ocean. His cheeks are red over sun-kissed, a healthy blush underneath a wavy fringe of dark auburn. 

When he reaches Mark's mailbox, a fiery red against the fading browns and greens of the garden, he lifts his head and waves, reserved, face flushed from the burning sun and the steady slope. Mark waves back almost immediately, steps back and stumbles over the basketball he left lying around. He winces in pain as his elbow scrapes the grey gravel of the pathway, rolls his eyes at his own carelessness. A snort sounds from a distance. Mark groans.

From the corner of his eye he can see the paper boy leave his bike on the pavement, nearly spilling the content of the bag slung across his shoulder in the process. He is laughing as he makes his way towards Mark, who sits cross-legged on the dry grass, wallowing in self-pity and embarrassment, his teeth white like daylight. He towers over Mark as he reaches out a hand, fingers black from chain grease. The sun encircles him in gold, a nimbus of radiance. Mark loses his breath for a split second before being pulled up and back into a reality of lavender and sweat. The halo is gone, the paper boy squeezes his hand as an indication for Mark to let go.

"Can I take a look at your elbow?" He asks, turning Mark's arm to inspect the graze that runs from his elbow to halfway his underarm. Droplets of blood well up where the damaged skin meets a smooth tan, a bright red to match Mark's cheeks. "That was extremely clumsy," he smiles up at Mark with the sun in his eyes, Mark awkwardly returns it. Ungainly, his mother would always call him. If he wasn't stumbling over his own feet, he was stumbling over his words. She said he'd grow out of it eventually. Mark doesn't think she was right.

"I try," he says and shrugs his shoulders like it's what he's known for. "Clearly," is the retort he gets, along with a flick to the forehead and a heart-shaped smile. Mark laughs again and watches how the paper boy's bike gets picked up from where it was left abandoned. He puts a newspaper in Mark's red mailbox and points to his own elbow. "Make sure not to bleed out, Mark," he smirks and holds a hand flat above his eyes to look at him. He waves again and squints his eyes. "Thanks, Donghyuck," Mark yells when he drives off. He keeps watching until Donghyuck's bike disappears over the hill in the waves of heat rising up from the black asphalt.

-

The next time he sees Donghyuck is in the convenience store two weeks later, in between the vegetables and the barbecue kits. The basket in his hands is filled with boxes of painkillers and bottles of house brand soda. Mark waves with a zucchini in his hand, graze on his arm turned into a light pink scab. Donghyuck comes over with a beaming smile on his soft features and chain grease stained fingers. 

"Nice to see you didn't die from a horrible infection," Donghyuck jokes, voice dripping sarcasm and honey, "That would've been sad for your parents to explain." Mark laughs and the old couple by the tomatoes looks over in annoyance. "I wonder what they would've said," he questions and Donghyuck lights up like the yellow neon sign outside. "Probably something about how you died because you were so captivated by my exquisite beauty." Mark snorts, "Big words." Donghyuck sways his basket back and forth and nods, "I've been bored."

Mark focuses on Donghyuck just standing there, lit up by the white lights in the fridges and the flickering yellow overhead lamps. He's wearing wide black shorts and a white hoodie. His skin is darker than it was a couple of months ago as a result of his daily bike-rides, his hair lighter. His smile shines like the sun. Mark figures that although he might not know the exact definition of the word exquisite, it must come pretty close to describing Lee Donghyuck.

"What are you looking at Mark Lee?" Donghyuck asks, raising his high voice and hands in feigned hostility, eyes shining with lambency. Mark pushes lightly against his chest and throws a packet of goldfish crackers in his basket. A child screams farther down the aisle. "Nothing," he shrugs," Just admiring your exquisite beauty."

Donghyuck laughs loudly, but Mark sees how the tips of his ears turn a burning red. If it was him, the younger would undeniably point it out and start pinching his cheeks and make fun of how bashful he is, Mark doesn't do that. Instead he tells himself that slight increase in his heartbeat is from laughing and ignores how the skin of his arm prickles when Donghyuck accidentally brushes his fingers against it. It leaves black marks from the chain grease, and a knot in the pit of Mark's stomach. 

Mark waits for Donghyuck by the register when the latter has to return a cucumber because his card has insufficient funds. Mark offers to pay for him but Donghyuck smiles and turns down the offer. "We've had it hard for a while now, Mark." He says, voice steady as he nods at the cashier in goodbye, "We'll be fine."

They walk into the night, Mark holding a couple of Donghyuck's plastic bags. Mark looks up to where the lights of his suburb illuminate the hillside and at the extensive black abyss behind it, where the desert stretches out as far as the eye can see. He carries the bags to Donghyuck's father's car, a rusty red truck parked on the far corner of the parking lot. 

Mark peeks his head inside the window when Donghyuck sits down in the passenger seat. "Hello," he greets the man, the smell of cigarette smoke slowly curling into his lungs. Donghyuck's dad doesn't respond. Mark turns to Donghyuck who's scowling at his father, face lit up by the blue glow of the dashboard. He turns to Mark with an apologetic smile. "It's alright, Hyuck," Mark whispers, so quietly that he thinks the other might not hear it over the rumbling of the outdated engine. Donghyuck reaches out a hand and lightly trails his fingers along Mark's forearm, intentionally, this time. Mark smiles and turns on his heel to go home, every now and then glancing at the goosebumps that appear where Donghyuck's fingers had been.

-

Mark often thinks of when he and Donghyuck started talking. 

In early December his Biology teacher walks in ten minutes after the second bell (which is incredibly out of habit), a boy with bright red hair on her arm, smiling widely at the class. He comes from the ocean, he says, and he glistens like waves. Mark almost doesn't look up. Jeno nudges his back when the boy walks over to the seat right next to Mark, asking him if it's alright to sit down. Mark stammers and Jeno jokes that someone might finally want to be his friend. The boy laughs, mouth wide open, a warm laugh that leaks joy and radiance. "I guess it's for a good cause," he says as he sits down and looks Mark straight in the eyes. What polar opposites they seem to be.

Yet it comes naturally, he supposes, the feeling of belonging, because Donghyuck has been next to him from the minute they first met. When school ends they inevitably stop talking, because Donghyuck can't be contacted. Mark wonders if Donghyuck thinks of him as much as he thinks of Donghyuck. 

And he doesn’t know what it is he feels, but it makes him wake up at an ungodly hour every morning to catch a glimpse of the boy on his paper rounds in the light of the rising sun.  _Love, maybe?_ Jeno would say, but what does he know?

-

The sun reaches its highest point in the sky during the barbecue Mark's family holds in the neighbourhood park, burning bright and hot on the soccer field Jeno and his brother are running around on. Mark sits in the shade against the trunk of an old oak, plucking at the few daisies surrounding him. He leans his head against the gnarled bark and closes his eyes. Sweat stings in the burns on his cheeks.

Footsteps break through the sound of the wind rustling lightly through the bright green of the canopy. Mark squints his eyes against the white sunlight and frowns at Jaehyun when the latter drops down right beside him. "What have I done to earn a look like that?" He gasps in mock offence and Mark smiles when Jaehyun ruffles his hair. "Just tired," he replies, leaning his head on Jaehyun's shoulder. Jaehyun hums. The sound hangs in the air for a while, along with the slight wind and Jeno laughing with Taeyong in the distance. "A little birdie told me you've been waking up early," Jaehyun speaks up, and shatters the rest in Mark's head, "Why?" Mark lifts his head to look Jaehyun in the eyes, he sees only genuine concern and curiosity. He shakes his head, "It's nothing."

Taeyong runs over and chases away the salamander Mark had been observing, a flash of bright red and brown, and tells them the food is ready before pulling Jaehyun away. Dongyoung pulls Mark up, soccer ball under his arm, and points out his reddened cheeks. "You should put more sunscreen on," he scolds, taking out a little tube and smearing the white cream all over Mark's face, the latter whining and telling him, "Stop babying me, man. I'm turning eighteen." Jeno laughs and the wind rises. Mark doesn't understand why he feels as if something's missing.

Later that day, in the evening, when everything starts to cool off, Donghyuck shows up with a basketball and a bottle of house brand soda. Mark smiles at the sight of him, hair messy on top of his head, orange t-shirt wrinkly. "Sorry I'm late," he apologises in a frenzy, "I might have fallen asleep." Mark doesn't say that he didn't expected Donghyuck to come. He'd let his hopes fall around three in the afternoon, when he saw Jaehyun trip over a chair and Donghyuck wasn't there for Mark to tell it to. "I'm glad you found the note I hung on the mailbox," he does say, and holds on to Donghyuck's hand for a split second too long.

The bunch of them sits under the palm trees by the basketball court, spilling secrets and taking sips of a bottle of sparkling wine the adults had left earlier (Taeyong might have hidden it exactly for this purpose, but no one needs to know that). Mark feels his head buzzing, a thousand bumblebees humming around uncontrollably like the mosquitos in the glow of the camping lamp in front of him.  Somewhere far away Jaehyun is laughing at Dongyoung's story of how he got hit by a car but did not let go of his ice-cream cone, gleeful and excited. Taeyong is amazed by Jeno's fidget spinner tricks. The world smells of sunscreen and heat.

Mark catches Donghyuck looking at him from in between Taeyong and Dongyoung, eyes slightly glossy and lips curled upwards at the edges. Daisies are woven into the auburn strands of his fringe, courtesy of Jaehyun, pink and white under the orange streetlights. He looks as if he doesn't quite belong here, a bunch of rowdy boys and an angel, Mark laughs at himself. He crawls over to Donghyuck on his knees, grass staining his light jeans green and leans into him. "I think you look like an angel," he whispers, the scent of lavender filling his nose. Donghyuck blushes bright red, like his hair last winter, and laughs when he replies, "I'm drunk, Mark. Angels aren't supposed to get drunk."

-

The soft pink patch of evening sunlight on the white ceiling of Mark's room slowly shifts with time as he gets dressed in front of the mirror. He smoothens the white shirt he finds in the back of his closet out with long fingers and stares himself in the eyes as he buttons it. The fabric strains over his shoulders and chest, his wrists are left uncovered. It astounds Mark how much he's grown since he wore the shirt to his guitar recital back in March. He remembers how the sleeves ran past his hands when his mother picked it out of the rack for his first talent competition last year, how he rolled up the sleeves twice and kept fiddling with the hem out of nervousness. It reminds him of how quickly time passes. He almost forgets he's eighteen now.

"Mark, come on!" His mother yells from downstairs. Mark sighs and stretches his arms above his head, hopes the buttons on his shirt will hold everything together. He closes the door to his room and looks at his mother from the top of the stairs. She's fiddling through her purse for something when she looks up at him and gasps. "Oh boy, we need to get you a new shirt some time," she laughs as Mark comes down. She folds his collar and kisses his cheek for the fourth time today. Mark smiles. "I can't believe you're already eighteen. It seems like only yesterday you came home from your first day of school screaming that you wanted to learn to play the guitar," she says, pulling his earlobe in the most affectionate way. Mark thinks of when Donghyuck touched his ears in the middle of a test because he wanted to know what they felt like and falters. He hasn't heard from him in two weeks. 

Jeno opens the door after Mark has rung the bell thrice (patience, his mother says. Mark still rings it a third time anyway), eyes crinkled into crescents as he pulls Mark into a hug and slaps him on the back. "Happy birthday," he says, as he's lit up by the setting sun, "You're a man now." He grins as the last rays of light disappear over the roof of the house across the street. "I am," Mark agrees, puffing out his chest, "My shoulders are probably broader than yours now." Jeno punches his chest lightly and snorts, "You should probably buy a new shirt then." Mark's mother raises her neatly plucked eyebrows at him from where she's sitting at the kitchen table, coddling Dongyoung as if he's her own first-born. The words  _I told you so_ are left unsaid.

The evening leaves Mark elated, filled with seaweed soup and hotpot, cheeks red from the compliments he receives. He sips his champagne as the conversation shifts from Dongyoung's soccer game to something that leaves Mark wishing he could get away, the bubbles of joy the wine left fizzling out in his throat like dying stars. 

"Our Jeno has a girlfriend now," Jeno's mother announces, voice swollen with pride as Mark's mother lets out a delighted squeal. Jeno on the other hand lowers his head bashfully and avoids Mark's astonished gaze. It's not that it comes as a surprise at all, seeing that Jeno had been talking about the girl for months now, but it still freezes something inside him cold enough for a shiver to run across his spine. He figures it's alright, as long as the conversation doesn't- 

"What about you, Mark?" Jeno's mother questions, curiosity mingling with the slightly intoxicated look in her eyes. Her voice sounds like champagne and sweet syrup, too sticky and thick, not smooth like Donghyuck's honey. Mark feels his heartbeat increasing and swallows the lump in his throat. "I, uh," he stammers. Jeno looks at him from across the table, equally curious as his mother. Mark kicks his shins under the table as he grits teeth and hopes Jeno notices his discomfort. He doesn't. "Well, I mean. I guess there is someone," Mark trails off. He thinks of Donghyuck's face when he called him and angel, thinks of Donghyuck's fingers on his arm and Donghyuck's smile. "But I don't think-" he cuts himself off, shaking his head. Everyone tilts their head in confusion at the same time. "I don't know." He remains quiet after that, doesn't really participate in the conversation unless he's asked. 

When they go home at two in the morning, Mark's birthday passed and gone with time, Mark thinks he'll probably never find enough courage to tell anyone about Donghyuck. Jeno pulls him aside when he steps into the hallway and swings an arm around his shoulder underneath the lightly swaying chandelier. "Talk," he demands and Mark wonders if he looks sad, because Jeno hasn't seemed this concerned since Mark fell on his wrist in elementary school. "I don't-" Mark starts and Jeno wraps his hand around the wrist Mark broke all those years ago. Jeno's his brother, he loves him to pieces. Jeno would never leave. "I like Donghyuck," he whispers, breathing in Jeno's scent of grass and ginger, heart beating in his ears so loudly that he barely hears his own voice. Saying it out loud makes it real. Jeno looks at him with wide eyes before smiling, "Jae owes me ten bucks."  The chandelier still loosely dangles from left to right, nothing's changed. Mark allows himself to calm down and wonders why he ever even doubted this reaction in the first place.

-

The grey walls of the high-rise apartment blocks stand out against the brown of the hills surrounding them. Mark looks at the note in his hands and wonders if he got off the bus at a wrong stop, Donghyuck's handwriting being near illegible. A train speeds past, Mark feels the reverberation in his bones. The sound echoes in his ears long after it's gone. He wipes his sweaty hands on his jeans. The sun shines hot on his exposed arms.

A sudden arm around his neck startles him and he yelps, pulling away. He turns around to find Donghyuck doubled over with laughter, shining so bright that Mark squints his eyes in the white light. The sound melts him like resin on a hot day. "I thought I was going to die, Hyuck," Mark says as the boy tries to calm down, he places his hand over his racing heart, "Never do that again please."  Donghyuck just smirks and shakes his head. "If that's your reaction, I'm going to do that every time I see you," he responds and takes Mark's hand in his own. "Do you want me to die?" He asks, anticipating a sarcastic answer. "Nah, I like you way too much for that," Donghyuck smiles unabashedly, dragging out the  _way_ , effectively sending Mark's heart back into overdrive. 

He doesn't let go of Mark's sweaty hand as they enter the elevator. "It's just two rooms for me, Taeil and dad," Donghyuck says as they step out on the fifteenth floor, "But the view is breathtaking." The hallway floor is covered in ugly brown carpet and the wallpaper is covered in mildew. Donghyuck pushes open the door of the apartment at the end of the hallway and extends his hand inside. "Ta-dah!" He exclaims and steps inside. Mark beams at him and looks around. 

It's not a big apartment, as Donghyuck had mentioned, in fact it's on the small side for a family of three. The living room is filled with boxes and the windows are narrow. The sun falls onto the red carpet from between curtains the colour of the ocean.  "Dad and Taeil are at work on the on the railroads," Donghyuck says, "So we have the kingdom to ourselves." He pulls Mark over to a wooden door with a small white sign that reads  _Taeil_ in big blocked letters, and then next to it, a lot smaller so it would fit,  _and_ _Donghyuck_ _._ "This is my room," Donghyuck supplies as he opens the door for Mark to see. The room is probably about the size of Mark's bathroom, which makes him feel bad, and contains only one bed. "Where do you sleep?" Mark asks and Donghyuck laughs and points at the mattress standing up next to the window, yellow sheets to match Donghyuck's personality. "It was a bed or my piano," he shrugs when Mark sends him a questioning look. 

"I have something for you, by the way," Donghyuck pipes up as he pushes Mark down onto what he assumes to be Taeil's bed, "For your birthday." He opens the closet at the foot of the bed and pulls out a little satchel, bright red. He hands it to Mark as he sits down. "It's not a lot, because I've been using my money for piano classes." He brings the satchel up to Mark's nose. It smells like lavender, the way Donghyuck does, almost like coming home. Mark looks out the window, at the desert and the sun. "I filled it myself," Donghyuck says and Mark is in love. 

When the sun climbs even higher, Donghyuck proposes they go freighting. "I've never done that," Mark hesitates, but Donghyuck shakes his head and clicks his tongue. "It's settled then," he exclaims, "You have to go freighting at least once. Consider today your lucky day." He pushes Mark towards the door and opens the window to let dry air inside the room. "We'll be back before dark in case you want to tell your parents," he says. Mark pulls out his phone, "I could just text them later, though?" Donghyuck almost laughs at him, "There's no signal out there, you suburban baby!" Mark breathes out a laught and marvels in the way Donghyuck's eyes glitter in the light, "Of course there isn't."

They find themselves in an empty train carriage thirty minutes later, surrounded by wooden crates, staring at the passing desert outside. Donghyuck sits with his legs dangling outside the carriage, the wind raking its fingers through his light blue t-shirt and his fiery locks. He looks like he belongs to the moment, like a gust of wind, a fleeting moment in time. As if he could disappear any second, having been nothing more than a figment of Mark's imagination. He turns to Mark with a lazy smile, eyes half-lidded and shining, he looks real again. Mark's heart skips beats like a jazz song, out of time with the steady sound of the train speeding over the tracks.

"Let's get off here," Donghyuck says after a long bout of silence, Mark's ears filled with the humming of the sun. When the train comes to a stop with a loud screeching of the brakes, Mark runs with Donghyuck clasping his hand until they collapse on a sandy hilltop and the railroads are out of sight. A bunch of saguaro cacti obscures their view over the valley, but Mark imagines it to be more sand and rocks anyway. His heart is still hammering in his chest from the rush of freighting, the running, and holding Donghyuck's hand. 

They get up after a minute of recovery and find a place in the shadow of a rock, in a dried-up riverbed. Scattered sunlight falls upon Donghyuck's face as he turns to Mark and offers him half of the molten snickers bar he finds in his pocket. 

"Thanks," he says, licking the leftover chocolate from his fingers, "For bringing me here." Donghyuck shrugs, "No problem. I used to go freighting with Taeil, but he works now, so he's barely got any time for me these days." There's a sad tone to his voice, unlike any Mark has ever heard from him. He thinks about it sometimes, how it seems as if Donghyuck's never sad about anything, always endlessly cheerful to a point it would even be annoying, if Mark didn't feel like kissing him every time he smiles like summer. He moves to lay his head down on Donghyuck's stomach, and looks up at the bright blue sky. 

"Do you ever miss your home?" Mark asks after a while, almost afraid of breaking the silence that settled over them. Donghyuck is focused on the sky, staring up at two eagles circling around each other far above them, their screeches echoing throughout the valley. Mark closes his eyes and watches phosphenes burn bright red against the insides of his eyelids, like reflections of dying suns. "I mostly miss the ocean," he says when Mark's phosphenes have turned from red to blue to purple, and doesn't avert his eyes from the expanse of sky stretching out above them. "That's why I like coming out here, you know," he explains, "Because it's almost as vast as the ocean is." Mark feels his head go up as Donghyuck sighs. 

The sun sinks further towards the horizon as Donghyuck decides to continue, "I think Taeil misses it a lot more," he says, voice softer, "Which makes me feel guilty." Mark shifts to look at Donghyuck and wipes the dirt from his hands, "What makes you say that?"  Donghyuck looks him in the eyes and purses his lips, "Well it is kind of my fault we had to move here in the first place." He states is like it's a well-known fact and probably doesn't miss the confusion that must show in Mark's eyes. "Look," he says, "We used to live in this huge house by the beach, and Taeil went to university, and we had everything we'd ever wanted. And then one day my mom left, which led to my dad losing his job and the house and everything we had. Taeil had to quit his studies because there was no money left to pay for his tuition and we had to move hundreds of miles away." He moves his hands in a way that shows that he's frustrated, Mark wants him to feel okay.

"I still don't understand why that's your fault though," Mark admits, and Donghyuck looks at him as if he'd been expecting Mark to say that. His cheeks turn red, not the way they do when Mark teases him or hold his hand or tells him he looks like an angel, they colour like he's deeply ashamed of something, as if someone has spilled his biggest secret. Mark grabs his hand and links their fingers together, Donghyuck almost pulls away. "It's my fault that my mom left though," he whispers, voice carried by the wind, "because I'm gay." 

Mark thinks his heart might shatter into pieces on the desert floor when he sees how Donghyuck looks away, as if he's afraid to meet Mark's eyes, as if Mark tightly holding onto his hand isn't an indication of how he's never going to leave. It's painful in a way, because it's so unlike Donghyuck to be like this, to look down in embarrassment, to burn red as if humiliated, because Donghyuck is so unashamed. He laughs unabashedly and shows people his poor home and tells everyone his new cool shirt comes from Goodwill. It's so terrible that he has to hide himself out of fear of what others might think of something that's so out of his hands.

"I'm so sorry that she made you think badly about yourself for that reason," he says, voice rough like sandpaper against the insides of his throat, "It so terrible that she took away you and your brother's dreams out of selfishness."  Donghyuck is looking at the sky again when he nods, like there's more to it than blinding white. "I know it's not really my fault," he admits, "but there's still a part of me that believes I'm to blame." The skin of his face shines golden in the orange light as the sun dips behind the hills and waves goodbye. 

He suddenly lifts a finger up to the sky and points at the eagles. "Did you know that eagles can fly away with humans, by the way?" He asks and Mark squints at him. "Really?" He asks, not trusting anything Donghyuck says since that one time he convinced Mark he had a pet seal back home (which Mark totally believed for three whole weeks until Dongyoung told him there's no such thing). Donghyuck nods with such conviction that Mark really does want to believe him, "Woah, that's kinda scary."  Donghyuck starts laughing a split second later and Mark feels his cheeks burn. "I can't believe you keep falling for this shit," he chuckles and Mark feels it resonating through his skull. He shifts his head to lean his ear against Donghyuck's chest and finds comfort in the  _thump_ _thump_ _thump_  of his heart like the sound of a train speeding over the tracks.

Mark finds that Donghyuck lives in the coming and going of the tide. Strong and rushing like the flood, crashing like ocean waves, and then retreating, softer and glinting in the light, warm like ebb. He remembers when Donghyuck introduced himself in class last year and said he was a boy of the ocean, how right he was. Mark smiles and looks Donghyuck in the eyes, dark brown and so deep that he will always find something new to look at. "What?" Donghyuck asks shyly. Mark buries his face in his neck. "Nothing," he whispers against the boy's protruding collarbones. He feels Donghyuck's heartrate pick up like it's the end of the world, "You just looked pretty." 

-

An apple-flavoured lollypop rests in Mark's mouth as he sits opposite Donghyuck in a sixties themed diner along the highway. The pink neon light above their table flickers twice a minute as Donghyuck tries to convince Mark to share his lollypop with him, casting long shadows over the younger's sun-kissed cheeks. The smell of maple syrup hangs in the hot air, mingling with wisps of cigarette smoke from nearly burnt out orange stubs in the ashtray on the counter. 

"Come on, Mark," Donghyuck begs in a voice like spun sugar, pink like the light above his head, "Just one lick." The yellow shirt he's wearing has specks of tomato sauce splattered all across the white letters on the chest, the neck almost falls off of his narrow shoulders. Mark shakes his head as he takes the lollypop from in between his teeth and tries his best to not let out a giggle at the pout that appears on Donghyuck's lips.

He's about to retort when the boy leans in and nudges Mark's nose with his own, a swift action that in a fraction of a second manages to knock all the oxygen out of Mark's already screaming lungs. It leaves every thought in Mark's brain blurred out and fading together like intoxicated speech. He hears sounds like he's on the bottom of a swimming pool. Time goes at half-speed.

The light of the sun shining through the blinds glints in Donghyuck's eyes as if cutting through layers of water, filtered and hazy. Mark looks down at the table and finds the lollypop resting like a cigarette between bony fingers the colour of burnt caramel. Donghyuck looks like he's struggling to not let his lips pull up at the corners. He brings the lollypop up to his mouth and holds it against plump pink before stealing it away from Mark's sight with a smirk.

"I hate you," Mark finally counters, as he hides his trembling fingers underneath the edge of the checkered tablecloth. The blush creeping up his neck and cheeks triggers an endless string of  _I love_ _you_ 's running through his mind right in time with the way his heart threatens to burst his eardrums from the inside-out.

-

Mark jolts awake in a whirlwind of tangled sheets and dreams of pink lips when his father's deep voice cuts through the summer haze he surrounds himself with on Sunday mornings. "Donghyuck is here," he yells, and no longer than sixteen seconds later Mark finds himself shirtless at the bottom of the stairs, faced with a smiling Donghyuck, engulfed in the smell of dirt and honeysuckle.

"What are you doing here?" Mark asks, bewildered as he rubs the sleep out of his eyes, dream Donghyuck mingling with the one right in front of him. Donghyuck lets the front door fall closed behind him with a soft click. He is wearing a white bucket hat and denim shorts, non-matching socks with a hole on the inside of the left big toe. His legs look endless like summer, coloured bronze in the light that shines through windowpanes in the door. His knees are covered in dark brown dirt.

"You know that old lady down the street," he questions as he points an index finger to the left as if to point at the location he means, "She can't tend her garden anymore, so I cut her grapes and tend her weeds and she pays for my piano lessons." He points at the dirt on his knees and the patches of sweat forming on his red shirt, "Hence the sweat."

Mark feels his heart swell against the inside of his ribcage as he hugs Donghyuck tight, not minding the sweat that somehow still has that distant fragrance of lavender to it. "I can now save up money to get you a real present," he says, absentmindedly pulling the hairs at the back of Mark's neck, sending a shiver to run a marathon along his spine. 

"You don't have to, you know," Mark replies, hands steady on Donghyuck's waist, softly stroking his long fingers over the tan patch of skin where the boy's shirt rides up, "I already love everything you give me." He wants to add how he's placed the satchel of lavender underneath his pillow, but Donghyuck's already pulling away from him in mock disgust and scrunching up his nose. And how adorable he looks. Mark is absolutely completely whipped.

"You are so cheesy that it's making me sick," Donghyuck laughs, reaching for Mark's hands to contradict his own statement, "I can't believe I'm in love with you." 

For the second time in four days, Mark's fairly sure he's having a heart attack (or he's going to get one very soon, because his reoccurring bouts of irregular heartbeat surely can't be a very good sign). Except this time he doesn't know exactly why he feels like his head is going to burst and his brain will leak out of his ears like hot lava. He's always assumed Donghyuck is as in love with him as he is, yet the confirmation feels like he's finally allowed to say it out loud, because he knows Donghyuck will throw the words right back at him. 

"I love you," he utters out, completely useless and out of time, but Donghyuck still smiles and exceeds every single one of Mark's expectations as he plants a soft peck onto the corner of Mark's lips. "Gross," he says, and then, a second or an hour later, "I love you too."

They crawl into Mark's one-person bed when the moon comes up over the expanse of wasteland outside of Mark's window. Donghyuck nestles his nose in the dip above Mark's collarbone and breathes in and out on his skin like morning fog over grassland. His hair smells like Mark's tangerine shampoo and his skin burns like hot coals.

"Your mom's a great cook," Donghyuck whispers, high voice almost drowned out by the wails of coyotes down in the valley, "Tell her I'd love to cook with her sometime." Mark hums and Donghyuck moves up to kiss his lips again and again and again. He traces Mark's jawline with his caramel fingers and smiles when the latter breathes out a soft giggle. "I'm glad I came here," he mumbles a couple of eternities later, voice muffled by sleep and skin. Mark exhales a quiet, "Because of her food?" Donghyuck hums in agreement, "Because of you."

**Author's Note:**

> that ending was so cheesy tho yikes (is kinda like the ur a whole meal joke??? idk)  
> idk if its good bc ive been writing this at night bc im stressed out for university monday (its 3:30 am yikes) anyway im in love with mark and his voice and that one guitar song he did fucked me over and im also in love with hyuck but that aint new.  
> thank you for reading and pls leave comments and kudos bc i really appreciate them <3
> 
> (also im not from the desert, i havent even been to a desert, idk what hot weather feels like bc it never stops raining where i live, so bear with me if the environment doesnt make sense haha,,)


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